"I had accepted that this is the way it would always be."

The only good thing about all those new kid’s indoor trampoline centres that have opened is that they are really busy and you have to book weeks in advance to get in. So when I tell my children – who keep begging me to go – that our local centre is all full for a few weeks, I’m not actually lying.

But when I deliberately don’t book us in, I’m stalling.

The thought of trampolining fills me with fear. I’ve had three children and my pelvic floor isn’t what it used to be. In my previous life BK (Before Kids) I could jump, climb, skip, cough and sneeze without fear. But just recently when I joined my children on our backyard trampoline I, Jo Abi, a grown woman of 38 years, wet myself.

My pelvic floor has clearly gone into early retirement, and trampolining isn’t the only activity that sees me in a spot of strife. In fact, I can’t go a day without wearing a liner for protection.

I had accepted that this is the way it would always be. I had three beautiful children. So what if I experienced a little leakage from time to time? I’d done pelvic floor exercises on and off over the years, but to be honest, with three small kids it was something that tended to quickly fall off the to-do list.

Jo Abi

Until a friend mentioned that she had recently started doing Pilates through the Poise® Pilates Online Studio, so I gave it a go. It features exercises targeted at different age groups, with each strengthening your pelvic floor muscles, as well as strengthening the rest of the body at the same time. For the past month, I’ve been doing the post-pregnancy set of exercises and I am thrilled to report that they have made a huge difference.

Leading Australian Pilates trainer, Kimberly Garlick, not only helps you FIND your pelvic floor (Finally! I found them!) but also teaches you to control it, and strengthen it. The exercises are like really focused stretches and you would have done many of them before, without even realising how useful they were for strengthening your pelvic floor.

We went to Flip Out on the weekend and guess what didn’t happen? I didn’t have any little embarrassing accidents. It was such an incredibly fun day and the kids loved it when I joined in on their activities. We spent a full hour just jumping around on all the different trampolines and I was able to just enjoy myself. I couldn’t believe what a difference the exercises had made. And trampolining is such a good workout. I was huffing and puffing and then bought a Frosty Fruit (for energy) and then started jumping around some more.

Jo with her daughter at Flip Out

We had so much fun. I may even get back on our backyard trampoline again.

I still wear liners each day, just in case, but I’m getting used to having much better bladder control and enjoying the new-found command I have over the muscles. It helps that I now brace myself when I do hop on our trampoline and I know for sure that I’ll never get an alarming leak again.

Have you ever experienced light bladder leakage?